About Me

Friday, October 31, 2008

At my office today we had a costume contest. Everyone came in costume and voted on the best costumes. I won second place--$25!

I have to say, I am very proud of this costume, which I made myself out of felt, stuffing and styrofoam balls for the eyes. I think it looks pretty convincing, even though it's only a head and a collar.

We had a lot of trick-or-treaters at the house today; it was the first time I had passed out candy to kids since I lived in my parents' house. Of course, I did it wearing my Kermit head. We had a lot of candy, but became concerned we were running out, so my sweetie went out and bought more. Now we have lots of extra candy :-). It was great to see all of the kids in their costumes, though, especially the kids on our block, whom we know. They're so cute!

Monday, October 13, 2008

We had friends visiting this weekend. They are grad school friends, and it was fun to see them, and their small daughter. When we were in grad school, N was particularly a cooking friend. She and I would frequently bake or cook something just for the fun of it, then invite our friends over to eat it. My favorite instance of this was the day we made three desserts because we couldn't decide which one to make; fortunately, a starving grad student social circle means a) everyone is generally home when you call and b) they're never going to turn down free food.

So it seemed totally natural that we go grocery shopping while they were here. And, in the store, we discovered this:

It's the Batter Blaster. Your eyes do not deceive you: that is a spray can, of the sort you usually find containing whipped cream. The instructions on top admonish you to "Shake Well." But this, dear friends, is not a simple can o' whipped cream. No, it's spray-on pancake batter! You shoot it directly from the can onto the griddle, "No mess, no clean up!" The bowl of batter in this picture is our control: we of course decided to do a head-to-head comparison between the Batter Blaster and regular old made-from-scratch, propellant-free pancake batter.

Here is my friend N making pancakes with the Batter Blaster. The batter comes out looking exactly like canned whipped cream does, with little ridges in it. However, unlike whipped cream, the batter quickly spreads on the pan until the ridges disappear.

In the end, we found that the homemade batter pancakes were both tastier (because they were less sweet) and fluffier than the Batter Blaster pancakes. The latter was a surprise to us: we remain puzzled as to what the batter gains by being pressurized in a spray can, if it does not gain fluffiness. If anything, the Batter Blaster pancakes were a bit rubbery, and a smidge squishy, like marshmallows. But hey, don't worry: the Batter Blaster is organic.

Finally, a really nice picture of my friend and her daughter on the ferris wheel in the Seattle Center. We do not appear to have harmed the small child with our experiments.